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Erin Carney “New Works” Featured in De Pree Gallery

Works by Erin Carney will be featured in the gallery of the De Pree Art Center at Hope College from Friday, Oct. 19, through Friday, Nov. 16.

There will be an artist's reception at the gallery on Thursday, Oct. 25, from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. In addition, Carney will give a gallery talk on Thursday, Nov. 1, at 4 p.m.

The public is invited to the reception, gallery talk and exhibition. Admission is free.

Erin Carney, a New York based painter, was born and raised inKalamazoo, Michigan. She received a B.F. A. in Sculpture and a B.A.in English Language & Literature from the University of Michigan in1997 and an M.F.A in Painting from the New York Academy of Art in2003. She taught painting at Binghamton University in Binghamton, NewYork, first as Visiting Artist in Painting and then as VisitingAssistant Professor, from 2005-2006. Awards include invitationalresidencies during 2006 and 2007 at the Pouch Cove Foundation inNewfoundland, Canada and a 2006 UUP Individual Development Award fromBinghamton University. Solo exhibitions include the BinghamtonUniversity Rosefsky Gallery, Hope College DePree Gallery and,upcoming, Spool Mfg in Johnson City, New York and the HandwerkerGallery at Ithaca College.

Erin Carney's two most recent bodies of work, "A Shifting Perceptionof the Familiar" and "At and Just Below", engage in explorations ofsense of place, the nature of phenomena and of visual perception.They draw influence from specific natural environments in Michigan,Upstate New York, and Newfoundland where the artist has spentsignificant periods of time.

Carney's artist statement portrays the goals of her artwork:

"At and Just Below" was conceived in 2006 during a two month residency in Newfoundland, Canada where I was inspired by the contrast between the continual movement of the ocean surface and the stillness of surrounding tidal pools. The resulting body of work investigates the perceptual challenge of simultaneously experiencing surface and what lies beneath, viewed from an aerial and oftenimagined perspective.

"These paintings reflect my interest in spaces where surface movement is contrary to and partially conceals movement below. The work reveals the entanglement of action, suspension, accumulation and interlude, providing an opportunity for a restructuring of perception to occur.

"Using color, mark making, and erasure I am building both a coherent image and inverting formal conventions as a means to explore how figure/ground becomes metaphor in dichotomies such as micro/macro, above/below and absence/presence."

The De Pree Art Center is located at 160 E. 12th St., on Columbia Avenue at 12th Street. The regular gallery hours are Mondays through Saturdays from 10 a.m. until 5 p.m.; and Sundays from 1 p.m. until 5 p.m. Gallery hours may be reduced during breaks and holidays. The gallery is handicapped accessible.